Small Business Archives - Gong

Alignment across RevOps and reps brings Frontify a 30% increase in lead conversion

Hannah Hapin — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 20:43:15 +0000

Alignment across RevOps and reps brings Frontify a 30% increase in lead conversion Deal Execution Engage Forecast Small Business Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Software 30% increase in lead conversion 20% increase in forecast accuracy The challenge Frontify used a combination of customized business intelligence solutions and spreadsheets — a workflow that was prone to errors. These cumbersome processes had a negative impact on productivity, pipeline conversion, and revenue predictability. The outcome Frontify gained contextualized signals on every customer interaction by consolidating onto the Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform. Using Gong Engage, the sales team refined its messaging and increased lead conversion rates by 30 percent. Plus, real-time insights into deal health from Gong Forecast led to a 20 percent increase in the company’s forecast accuracy. Headquarters St.Gallen, Switzerland founded 2013 company size 500+ industry Software Development Building an iconic brand takes a village and — perhaps most importantly — that village has to be on the same page. That’s where Frontify comes in. Frontify bills itself as “the brand for the people behind brands.” The company offers a cloud-based, brand-building platform that combines digital asset management, brand guidelines, and templates into a fully collaborative single source of brand truth. As the Head of Revenue Operations at Frontify, Naya Tsoukala knows a thing or two about building the Frontify brand. “My priorities include fostering alignment between sales, customer success, and all commercial teams, ensuring that we have a streamlined way of looking at forecasting and processes that set us up for success,” she says. However, that had been tough to do when the revenue team had to manage and integrate multiple solutions. Ironically, what the Frontify platform helps brand teams achieve around the world, the Frontify sales teams weren’t able to do for themselves because they had too many tools that didn’t play well together. “Consolidation has been the main driver,” Naya says. “It’s always amazing to have one platform where you can do everything — from pipeline management to forecasting — with productivity and sophisticated insights.” Previously, all data had to flow through Frontify’s CRM. Because the revenue team had other products integrated with the CRM, they encountered integration problems that led to unreliable or incomplete sales data. They had lots of data, but little confidence. To alleviate these challenges, Naya and her revenue team switched to the Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform, including Gong Forecast for greater revenue predictability and Gong Engage for full-cycle sales engagement. 30% growth in lead conversion by switching to Gong Engage Before they consolidated onto a unified platform, Frontify was using Outreach to support its sales processes. “What Outreach is lacking is those contextual signals that allow our sales teams to engage more efficiently and intelligently with our prospects,” says Naya. By switching to Gong Engage, reps at Frontify have more detail on every customer interaction right at their fingertips, allowing them to refine their messaging and increase lead conversion rates by 30 percent. “Gong’s AI has changed our approach to sales engagement,” she adds. “We now have actionable insights that we can leverage. We don’t need to add CRM notes — you can just ask AI to give you a summary. Everything is at our fingertips.” Beyond increased win rates, Frontify’s sales team is also seeing a higher quality of leads entering the pipeline. And with centralized workflows and full context across account histories, the company’s reps can spend less time searching for deal insights and more time selling. “We’ve noticed a drastic improvement on our lead conversion rate. We are noticing a 30 percent increase.” — Naya Tsoukala, Head of Revenue Operations at Frontify Forecast accuracy grows by 20% with real-time insights Running a well-oiled revenue machine is about more than just converting leads or generating pipeline (even though those are critical). It’s also about making that revenue predictable. But Frontify’s cobbled-together solutions lacked the real-time data necessary to power the company’s forecasting system. This led to friction between the teams because they didn’t have a standardized approach to pipeline management. “We used to miss our quarterly forecast by 30 or 40 percent,” Naya says. “Since implementing Gong Forecast, we’ve noticed a 20 percent increase in our forecast accuracy.” The real-time insights into deal health and progression that Gong Forecast provides have led to more efficient pipeline management, directly contributing to Frontify’s revenue growth. “It’s a win-win situation for everybody,” Naya says. “It’s a win for RevOps because we get to implement the infrastructure setup we strive for, and it’s a big win for reps because they get the results they’re aiming for.” “Gong’s reliable and precise forecasts are now being trusted and used by our board to inform strategic decisions.” — Naya Tsoukala, Head of Revenue Operations at Frontify Finally, a platform everyone loves The ability to deliver a seamless experience to reps has been game-changing both for Frontify and for its frontline. As Naya says, “They do their jobs better. They convert better. They’re happier. Reps now have a greater ability to accelerate their results.” And with increased alignment across teams, the company’s revenue organization can now enjoy a unified and streamlined experience similar to what Frontify’s own brand-building platform is bringing to businesses around the world. “Working with Gong has helped us stay ahead of competition by providing detailed and actionable insights that drive revenue.” — Naya Tsoukala, Head of Revenue Operations at Frontify Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Gong’s revenue intelligence fuels a 141% surge in Paycor’s client sales success Customer Stories Sales Leadership Videos Enterprise Deal Execution North America Software simPRO Empowers Hybrid Sales and a Culture of Accountability in a Global Workforce Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Asia-Pacific Software How Uberflip used Gong to create winning outcomes and push ACV up by 13% Small Business Coaching Deal Execution North America Software

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How Hive’s Revenue Strategy Evolved to Achieve 30% Growth in Pipeline Opportunities With Gong

Hannah Hapin — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 22:11:49 +0000

How Hive’s Revenue Strategy Evolved to Achieve 30% Growth in Pipeline Opportunities With Gong Engage Small Business North America Software 30% Increase in Pipeline Opp 30% saved on technology spending 99% accuracy on AI driven predictions and recommendations 44% Increase in meetings The challenge Hive was at a crossroads. Despite having a solid product and dedicated teams, the sales process was bogged down by outdated practices and a clunky legacy sales platform that hindered efficiency and growth. The sales team struggled with manual tasks, disjointed data, and a lack of actionable insights, which made closing deals more challenging than it needed to be. The outcome Implementing Gong Engage has redefined Hive’s sales strategy, driving a 44% increase in meetings and a 30% boost in pipeline opportunities. With streamlined workflows and AI-driven insights, Hive not only reduced manual tasks but also enhanced productivity, leading to a 20-30% cost saving through the consolidation of sales tools. Headquarters New York, New York founded 2016 company size 50+ industry Software Development John Furneaux, CEO of Hive — a company at the forefront of project management — has always known that the key to attracting new customers is understanding them. With a 100% inbound go-to-market strategy, Hive’s challenge was about more than capturing leads — they needed insights into their prospects. With these insights, they hoped to create more effective, tailored interactions and strategies that could help increase engagement and conversion rates. This led Hive to Gong, which they used to transform their entire sales cycle into a science. “Gong has fundamentally changed how we approach our sales cycle,” John notes. “Instead of relying on guesswork, we’re making decisions backed by data, seeing a direct impact on our engagement metrics, opportunities, and overall growth.” Gong isn’t just another software in Hive’s tech stack; it’s a strategic partner. “Visibility into the customer journey is about so much more than metrics,” says John. “We need to understand the story behind every deal. Gong has given us the ability to capture these nuances, transforming how we engage with prospects and customers alike.” This has enabled Hive to build comprehensive, end-to-end processes that drive smarter, more effective sales decisions. The impact? Nothing short of remarkable. Hive has seen a 44% increase in meetings booked and a 30% rise in sales opportunities. But the real story here is about more than impressive metrics. It’s about growth – how Hive tapped into Gong’s insights to succeed in a competitive market. A new horizon in sales: The power of AI-driven insights Under John’s leadership, Hive was poised to take a significant leap forward — but a key piece of the puzzle was missing. The team was stuck using legacy processes that were labor-intensive and outdated, particularly when it came to customer outreach and engagement. “It felt like we were trying to navigate with an outdated map. We didn’t have the agility or insights needed to effectively guide prospects through their buying journey,” says John. Tools and processes once thought of as state-of-the-art now couldn’t keep up. John knew that in order to evolve, Hive needed to transform its sales stack. The fix came in the form of a powerful duo: Gong Engage and Gong Conversation Intelligence. For Hive, it’s not just about having data; it’s about having the right data to make informed decisions and drive meaningful conversations. John notes, “The accuracy of Gong’s AI-driven insights really surprised me. Its predictions and recommendations of next steps in a deal were right almost 100% of the time. If Gong suggested something, there was a 99.9% chance it was correct.” The outcome? Thanks to AI, John can now breeze through deals, smoothly navigating discovery calls to pinpoint the origin of each prospect and, more importantly, how to guide his team to uncover more opportunities. “Before, I found myself sifting through call transcripts, trying to piece together insights — it was so time-consuming. Now, with Gong’s call highlights, I can quickly get the feedback I need, dramatically speeding up our ability to learn and adapt,” John says. Precise personalization sets a new standard “Our old approach to outreach was inefficient and outdated. It failed to connect with our prospects on a meaningful level,” John says. Unfortunately, finding a platform that supported smart, tailored messaging was easier said than done. Then the team found Gong. With the help of Gong’s AI, the team could create highly personalized follow-up emails with just a few clicks. Now, reps can write communications that are relevant not just to the recipient but also to the deal stage, company pain points, and more. With Gong doing the legwork, Hive’s sales team has been able to allocate more time to strategic initiatives, improving overall sales performance. This feedback loop of insights also serves as a foundation for continuously refining Hive’s sales messaging, enhancing every aspect of the customer engagement process. The benefits were tangible: a notable 44% increase in meetings booked. While this leap reflects the immense power of AI, it also highlights Hive’s commitment to meaningful engagement, ensuring messages are delivered to the right person at the right time with the right content. “Gong Engage has become an integral part of our sales strategy, letting us continuously fine-tune our approach. The insights we get feed directly into improving our sales messaging and customer engagement process; it sets a whole new standard.” — John Furneaux, CEO, Hive Gong: Hive’s partner in growth For Hive, Gong is more than a revenue platform; it is a strategic partner, helping the company revolutionize the way it sells. “I can’t fathom how any business with salespeople runs without Gong,” John marvels. “It’s transformational!” Because of the consolidation Gong offers, Hive has managed to save up to 30% on sales technology spending. Despite decreasing spending, sales performance has never been better, showing that thoughtful technology integration can be a linchpin for growth. Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one How Addepar onboards new hires 60% faster with Gong Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Software How Iron Mountain shortened new-hire ramp times by 3 months using Gong Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Business Services Canva’s 6% revenue boost: How using Gong transformed their strategy Enterprise Deal Execution Engage Forecast Asia-Pacific Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Software

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Fast-growing Rootly sees 67% increase in rep productivity thanks to early investment in Gong

Hannah Hapin — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 19:41:01 +0000

Fast-growing Rootly sees 67% increase in rep productivity thanks to early investment in Gong Deal Execution Small Business North America Software 67% increase in rep productivity 13% increase in competitive win rates The challenge Up against ambitious goals, JJ Tang, CEO and Co-founder at Rootly, needed to onboard reps faster. With a growing team, JJ wanted a better way to share information and facilitate strategic decision-making across the organization. The outcome The Rootly team turned to the Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform to improve rep productivity. As a result, they’ve seen a 13% increase in competitive win rates, and a 67% increase in deals per rep. Headquarters San Francisco, CA founded 2021 company size Small Business industry Software Development F1 drivers aren’t the only ones picking up speed. Last year, the team at Rootly, an incident response management platform, stepped on the gas and grew the business by 500%. Today Rootly has hundreds of customers like Tripadvisor, Squarespace, and Figma. “In the last year, we’ve been focused on scaling the business, and a lot of that comes down to bringing on new people, and new people need to be ramped quickly,” shares JJ Tang, CEO and Co-founder at Rootly. JJ and the Rootly team rely on the Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform to drive faster ramp times and better business outcomes. In fact, using Gong to streamline productivity has increased the team’s competitive win rates by 13% and deals per rep by 67%. As a CEO, I’ve been focused on how we accelerate and scale. Gong is essential in ramping my growing team faster, getting deeper marketing insights, and making informed business decisions. JJ Tang, CEO and Co-Founder at Rootly Breaking down silos to build efficiency Looking for a better way to share information across the growing organization, JJ turned to Gong. Using the revenue intelligence technology, the Rootly team records and stores all internal and external conversations in one place. Having a single source of truth drives alignment across departments and enables the team to better serve their prospects and customers. “Gong has really helped us cut across silos,” shares JJ. Team members are no longer reliant on their memory or notes to execute critical business initiatives, leading to more effective work. “We don’t make errors at the same rate as we used to. Now everyone from product to sales to customer success can prioritize the tasks that will bring the most value to the company,” shares JJ. The team’s implementation of Gong has made a major impact on knowledge sharing, especially as early-adopters. “You have to invest in Gong early to pay dividends later,” shares JJ. He believes the platform is foundational to any high-growth business. Fast-growing companies should invest in Gong before they invest in Salesforce. It’s essential for getting the business insights leaders need. JJ Tang, CEO and Co-Founder at Rootly Competitive insights increase win rates by 13% In the ever-evolving world of cybersecurity and incident response management, access to timely competitive intel is critical. With insights from all conversations in one place, the Rootly team brought their competitive strategy into a new age and increased competitive win rates by 13%. JJ and his team use Gong’s market insights to track competitor mentions and learn who they’re up against. With access to in-depth conversation summaries, Rootly’s teams are able to learn about competitors’ features and functionality, and how their products are perceived in the market. These data-backed insights fuel the creation of go-to-market playbooks, and keep the team one step ahead of the competition. Reps are able to plant landmines against the competition and handle any objections thrown their way during prospect and customer interactions. A more equipped team has led to more closed deals, and more money for the business. More efficient processes lead to a 67% increase in deals per rep In addition to capturing competitive insights, the team at Rootly uses Gong to make new and existing sellers more efficient. By using Gong’s library of insights and snackable, AI-generated summaries, Rootly onboards reps 3x as quickly, which has helped them achieve their ambitious growth goals. “We’re not in the type of business where a person can ramp over four or five months. We need them to be doing their job in the first three weeks,” says JJ. “Gong AI does a great job of summarizing key points, so it makes onboarding super, super quick.” – JJ Tang, CEO and Co-Founder at Rootly Access to a deep repository of customer interaction history enables all reps, regardless of tenure, to see what’s working well and what isn’t. Rootly reps rely on Gong AI to help them quickly identify pain points and next steps so they can close more deals. The Rootly team also uses Gong to turn trial users into happy, paying customers. Using insights from past interactions, the Rootly team puts together a “brag document” for each trial user. They reference positive sentiments mentioned during their trial to help push the deal forward when it comes time for the final evaluation. This data-driven approach has led to more productive conversations and more revenue. The results speak for themselves: using Gong to gather insights across the buyer journey has resulted in a 67% increase in deals per rep. Rootly is off to the races Using Gong to share information, gather competitive insights, and onboard reps faster has helped JJ and the team bring on exciting new customers. And they’re just getting started; the Rootly team is still gaining momentum and finding new ways to streamline operations and enhance productivity with Gong. JJ is confident in his decision to bring Gong into their tech stack — his only regret was not doing it sooner. Gong is the best piece of software I bought last year. It instantly changed the way we worked and supercharged our productivity. My only regret was not switching from Otter.ai earlier. JJ Tang, CEO and Co-founder at Rootly Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Business Financing Leader Funding Circle Credits Gong With More Successful Customer Interactions Enterprise Coaching Strategic Initiatives Global Business Financing How Auvik created Its a-team with Gong Small Business Coaching Deal Execution North America Software Glasses on! How Gong enables Drip to “See what’s Going on” and close more deals Small Business Coaching Deal Execution North America

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Absorb Software sees 30% revenue boost by adopting gen AI for productivity gains and improving buyer experience

Hannah Hapin — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 19:34:16 +0000

Absorb Software sees 30% revenue boost by adopting gen AI for productivity gains and improving buyer experience Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business North America Education 30% Increase in revenue The challenge Before adopting Gong, Absorb’s leadership team made many decisions based on the info that sales reps entered into Salesforce. They had to trust that the reps added the right info in a timely manner. Execs didn’t have functional visibility and the time it took to mine for insights was untenable. All this impeded Absorb’s growth trajectory. The outcome Absorb’s sales team is closing more deals by using Gong’s gen AI to power training sessions and refine sales strategies. They halved the time from a rep’s hire to their first sale. Best of all, total revenue is up by 30%. Headquarters Calgary, AB founded 2003 company size 500+ industry E-learning A whopping 77% of a rep’s precious time gets devoured by non-selling activities, as reported by Forrester. That’s a startling reality and it has repercussions for everyone in revenue-focused roles. Generative AI (gen AI) addresses this by delivering remarkable productivity and automated support to sales teams, so they can spend more time on selling activities. Absorb Software revamped its sales workflows by adopting Gong’s gen AI (purpose built for revenue teams), thus increasing the coaching time available to sales reps and propelling productivity gains. We talked with Absorb’s Senior Sales trainer, Kerry Heilskov, to hear about these wins first hand and how they increased revenue by 30%. Let the highlights spark ideas for how you might use AI to improve win rates in your role. Turning limited visibility into actionable insights Absorb Software is a global leader in learning solutions, and their learning management system (LMS) revolutionizes onboarding and learning engagement. Kerry oversees the onboarding and ongoing development of Absorb’s sales professionals. She’s devoted to ensuring that Absorb reps have the training they need to improve the buyer’s journey and quickly drive new and recurring revenue. Before Gong, Kerry says “life wasn’t good.” Senior managers made decisions based solely on the info that reps did or didn’t put into Salesforce. There was “no real visibility.” Tasked with significant growth, Absorb’s sales team hit pause to find a platform that could help them save time and enhance decision-making. Absorb adopted Gong, a choice Kerry credits with contributing to a 30% increase in revenue. The Call Spotlight feature has been the real standout for the team — they can’t imagine going back to not having it. Call Spotlight focuses your attention on the critical aspects of a call, helping you understand all the key details without listening to an entire conversation. Plus, it delivers actionable insights instead of basic summaries. Unlocking sales excellence in workflows Gen AI has fully reshaped Absorb’s sales workflows, resulting in stronger communication and high performance. Here are the top ways the sales team is closing more deals using Call Spotlight: Meeting mastery and coachable moments Preparing for meetings now takes 80% less time. Sales leaders review three times as many calls in less time. The best part? They hone in on the key parts of a call to deliver timely spot coaching, which has accelerated high performance. Crafting compelling follow-ups Sales reps use the AI’s suggestions for impactful follow-up emails. Call Spotlight integrates pertinent details from the discussions into the emails, guiding buyers towards action, then team members simply customize the email to align with their individual style and tone. This eliminates the challenge of figuring out what to say, and prevents deals from slipping through the cracks. Collaborating to close deals Call Spotlight facilitates seamless collaboration between account execs and solution engineers. Call synopses pinpoint customer pain points and show exactly what to cover in demos to improve the buyer’s journey. Teams use Call Spotlight’s Ask Anything feature to uncover the business problems behind a customer’s tech problem. Asking straightforward questions like, “What business problem is the customer trying to solve?” can provide deep insights into the customer’s needs and culture. With that knowledge, the team sells a wider range of solutions grounded in value. This approach leads to more and larger deals closed. Adoption and getting results If you want to unearth AI’s full potential, Kerry recommends “showing your team the power of the tool.” She devised an activity that requires reps to document a call’s highlights and next steps. This activity takes them more than one hour to complete manually, but only two minutes with Call Spotlight. Once a rep experiences this time saving, they quickly incorporate the tool into their workflows. It’s a no-brainer. The best part? Now, you can enrich your CRM with Call Spotlight data and insights. This means your reps won’t spend countless hours on manual data entry instead of selling to customers. “Throughout my sales career, sellers have always asked for an assistant. Well, Gong is your assistant! Call Spotlight reduces our follow-up and documentation time by as much as 96%. Experiment with it. Those who use it will always outperform the rest.” If you want to harness the time-saving power of gen AI with your team, we’d love to show you Call Spotlight. Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one How the Datarails team used Gong to develop a whopping 300% increase in ARR Small Business Coaching Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Software Isos Technology is able to be more present with Gong Small Business Coaching North America Software Sprout Social creates a customer-first culture using Gong Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Global Software

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How the Datarails team used Gong to develop a whopping 300% increase in ARR

Hannah Hapin — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 16:15:15 +0000

How the Datarails team used Gong to develop a whopping 300% increase in ARR Coaching Strategic Initiatives Small Business Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Software 300% Increase in ARR The challenge DataRails has a product that exists in a crowded space. Their challenge is to build awareness of the brand and demonstrate how the platform stands out from the competition. The outcome The Marketing team uses Gong to understand their audience and the true voice of customers. They use this uncovered knowledge to construct impactful campaigns that better target their audience and keep them ahead of competition. headquarters New York, New York founded 2015 company size 150+ industry Software Development Written by Jonathan Marciano, Director of Communications at Datarails Do you remember the popular 80s cartoon “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” When Prince Adam transformed into the muscle-bound hero, he shouted, “I have the power!” But did you know that the phrase came from a kid? Market researchers were listening to children playing with their He-Man toys and they heard one of the kids say, “I have the power.” They pulled it into the animated series and the rest, as they say, is history. I experienced a He-Man moment with my Datarails marketing team. Using the Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform, our marketers had the power to listen to our customers and use their words to influence action and guide products — and create an incredibly successful marketing campaign. Even as adults, we form connections with fictional characters and public figures, and we love it when they say what we’re thinking. That was the magic ingredient behind Datarails’s “Hollywood Stars Narrate financial planning and analysis (FP&A) Processes” viral video, and a campaign that put the words of financial professionals in the mouths of popular television stars. It was a He-Man-level moment for our marketing team, and one whose lessons we’ve carried forward with us. We focused on an under-recognized role to build awareness in a crowded space Datarails is a fast-growing company. Our FP&A platform automates financial reporting in Excel. It uses machine learning and AI to consolidate and analyze data in multiple Excel spreadsheets, then transform it into easy-to-understand charts and graphs. It gives financial professionals advanced analytics capabilities without giving up their most trusted tool, Excel. Our product exists in a crowded space. My challenge as Director of Communications is to build awareness of our brand, demonstrate how our platform stands out from the competition, and generate excitement about a potentially dry subject. I wanted to inject humor and humanity into FP&A because the people who use it in their work aren’t often in the spotlight. Their manual processes aren’t as exciting as strategic work, so nobody talks much about their pains and passions or thinks too much about the personalities of these professionals. We wanted to change that. How we started using Gong in our marketing to channel the voice of our customers The “Hollywood Stars” campaign was powered by Gong, an innovative platform that captures customer interactions to gather data that we can turn into strategic insights. Gong integrates with CRM software and uses AI models to analyze calls and trends, determine market dynamics, and suggest next steps. It’s a powerful tool that helps sales representatives and revenue teams increase conversion rates. Buyers offer up a lot of information when they talk to sales reps. They may mention what’s bothering them about a product, but just as often they’ll share that they’re having a bad day, or that their kid scored a home run in yesterday’s Little League game. Analyzing people’s actual words provides deeper insights than having them answer the pre-written questions on a customer satisfaction survey and trying to interpret the results. Given the power of the platform, I thought, “Why not use it for marketing?” It seemed like the perfect solution to help me discover and channel the voice of the customer. In marketing, you have to understand your audience and speak their language. Otherwise, your campaigns will miss the mark. In marketing, you have to understand your audience and speak their language. Otherwise, your campaigns will miss the mark. I’d heard about Gong before joining Datarails in 2021, but this was my first opportunity to leverage it. Gong allows leaders across an organization to capture insights from customer interactions and hear what customers have to say. Marketing professionals like me can use its keyword trackers and Smart Trackers (the latest AI in concept tracking) to spot emerging trends and identify potential thought leaders among our customers. I use it frequently to gain visibility into what our users think, see, and feel when they engage with our product. For example, when I first joined Datarails, I heard a conversation in which a CEO wanted their company to phase out Excel. As a finance person, it was her worst nightmare. This real-life story was sure to resonate with Datarails customers, so I turned it into a social post (with anonymized content, of course) about the anxieties of FP&A professionals who are asked to swap their primary work tool for something “a little more modern.” A campaign using real customer interactions tripled our ARR by 300% That early post led to the “Hollywood Stars” campaign. I thought it would be fun to have television actors reenact customer calls about Datarails and Excel. Whether it’s sports, movies, music, or work, we’ve all had friends’ and colleagues’ eyes glaze over when we talk about something we love or find frustrating. We decided to take complaints that others found dull and transform them by having Hollywood actors express them out of context. This campaign would allow us to share our customers’ pain points in a language our audience understands and appreciates but that is tedious to the outside world — chopping and manipulating data and the kind of stuff FP&A professionals find fascinating. Imagine a hitman talking about spreadsheets or a ditzy teenager who can barely pronounce basic Excel functions, and you get the idea. HOLLYWOOD STARS NARRATE FP&A STRUGGLES We shared the campaign on LinkedIn, and FP&A professionals latched on. The video got more than 150 likes, shares, and reshares from industry professionals and received news coverage in top trade media, including an Accounting Today piece that generated 15 opportunities. We ran the campaign on a shoestring budget, spending $4,000 for television stars from The Sopranos, Clueless, Baywatch, and The West Wing, to act out actual customer dialogue retrieved from Gong. It was fabulous and fun. Those initial LinkedIn shares were the tip of the iceberg. People shared the campaign on WhatsApp and Slack, and that social exposure increased our follower count, further fueling requests for demos. We even heard that Gong’s team was sharing the video with other customers.But the campaign was more than viral fun. Brand content such as this helped Datarails grow our annual recurring revenue (ARR) by 300% last year. Insights let us make smart business decisions that prioritize our customers We also used Gong to create a fun video featuring one of our sales reps. “Days of our Lives with Robert Reis” edits footage of him talking about his wife and kids during customer interactions. It showcases his sense of humor and humanity as he shares personal anecdotes about family life to relate to Datarails’s customers and their professional struggles. This montage got a lot of traction on LinkedIn. Robert’s customers and colleagues commented on the video and shared it with their peers, who thought he was relatable. Once again, we humanized FP&A professionals and our brand using customer interactions from Gong that we knew would resonate. Every customer insight we gather from Gong provides us with more growth opportunities. We recently launched another campaign based on a sentiment that CFOs and finance professionals say in passing: that there aren’t enough hours in the day to do what they need to do. The idea came from searching for “clone” in Gong. I found so many people making off-the-cuff remarks like, “I wish I could clone myself,” and “I wish there were more of me.” We built the campaign, “Not a Clone,” around this idea which the media loved and it featured in Fortune and other news sites. It included a video and a portal where people can insert their LinkedIn picture and see five different “clones” of themselves. An online petition to ‘Make finance teams strategic leaders, not poor clones of themselves’ has been signed by nearly 1400 people including CEOs, COOs, and CFOs. A lot of the language from Gong is included in the campaign, and we’re collaborating with 10 other FP&A companies to spread the message. Gong’s direct access to customer concerns allows marketers to analyze and understand the metrics that mean the most to them. Datarails is a small company with only 200 employees, but our growth potential is massive because Excel is entrenched at so many companies worldwide. Despite our limited marketing budget, Gong gives us direct access to customer concerns, allowing us to analyze and understand the metrics that mean the most to them. With this clarity around what FP&A professionals and CFOs need to know about their businesses, we build Datarails automations that allow our users to extract relevant metrics and KPIs from their spreadsheets. Gong provides valuable business intelligence that helps us add these features and target our customers’ needs. Gong-based campaigns keep us ahead of the competition Great campaigns come from listening to customers. Gong has given me and the Datarails marketing team a way to get closer to our customers, allowing us to create content that resonates deeply with them. Our “Hollywood Stars” campaign began as a “wouldn’t it be funny if,” idea and turned into a hit. Gong was at the core of that campaign, and recognized our work with the Golden Gong Innovator Award. As a marketer, I realize that generating publicity and newsworthy stories means staying ahead of the curve, embracing changing markets, and adapting quickly to our customers’ needs. Customer data from Gong helps us spot new pain points before they enter the mainstream conversation — and before our competitors are aware they exist. Thanks to Gong, I can echo the words of He-Man and proudly say, “I have the power!” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one ThoughtSpot Leaves Behind “The Telephone Game” Small Business Coaching North America Software All Paths Lead to Retention: How Gong “Forever Changed” Sendoso’s Customer Experience Team Small Business Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software Gainsight’s CEO uses Gong to better understand the true market Small Business Coaching Global Software

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Upwork’s RevOps team rockets to 95% sales forecast accuracy using Gong

Hannah Hapin — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 14:30:00 +0000

Upwork’s RevOps team rockets to 95% sales forecast accuracy using Gong Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business North America Software 95% Sales Forecasting accuracy The challenge Before Gong, Upwork recognized the potential for enhancing the accuracy of its internal sales forecasts, especially in an unpredictable market. They also needed better (and earlier) visibility into whether their new GTM initiatives worked at an enterprise level. The outcome Upwork’s sales teams now forecast with 95% accuracy with highly reliable deal execution. Its RevOps team uses Gong to power well-informed decision making from day one for every GTM initiative. headquarters San Francisco, California founded 2015 company size 100,000+ industry Technology, Information and Internet Upwork is the world’s leading work marketplace, connecting businesses with independent talent from around the globe. Their talent community earned more than $3.8 billion on Upwork in 2022 across more than 10,000 skills, with over 800k clients turning to Upwork to innovate their workforce, accelerate the velocity of their work, and achieve their growth objectives. Their sales team navigated massive growth and scaled successfully using Gong data. Today, they rely on Gong Forecast — the perfect pairing of data and AI — to achieve incredible sales forecast accuracy while they continue to scale. The company began using Gong in 2017 and it was well-received from day one. Gong is now the RevOps team’s go-to for forecasting its sales accurately. Drew Korab, Director of Revenue Operations at Upwork, says his main challenge was being able to provide an accurate forecast to the business while scaling and implementing GTM initiatives that focus on enterprise sales. “Using Gong Forecast, we were able to call accurate sales numbers, even in the middle of major organizational change and an uncertain economy. Our old forecast process and data just didn’t cut it anymore. Gong Forecast gave us the new data, process, and insights we needed to project how our new business line would perform,” says Korab. “We’ve used Forecast for three solid quarters and our accuracy has only grown, to the point that we’re now at 95%. That’s invaluable for a company that’s moving into new sales territory in an uncertain economy.” Upwork runs a predictable revenue org, even while scaling The RevOps team uses Gong’s real-time insights to assess its pipeline health and uncover risks that would otherwise lead to a missed number. For a publicly traded company, that type of predictability and accuracy are critical. Before Gong, Upwork recognized there was an opportunity to provide a more accurate quarterly sales forecast. A new upmarket sales motion and a growing team meant that forecasting based on historical data didn’t work any more. Last year’s data — even last quarter’s data — was no longer a good baseline for comparison, and the data coming via the CRM just didn’t provide an accurate picture of the pipeline.The shifting economy magnified these challenges and made everything harder. The result was an unpredictable forecast that made double-digit swings in accuracy from quarter to quarter.Upwork needed real-time data for every deal in their pipeline so the sales team could forecast consistently and reliably. With the help of Gong Forecast, Korab got everyone working in one application where they had access to deal health data and AI that highlighted risks and told them where they were going off track. Here’s how Upwork’s GTM team now uses Gong to run their weekly forecasting process: Daily: Reps and managers use the Deal Board for pipeline inspection, and to update their opportunity progress and forecast categories (all syncing back to CRM). Gong’s deal warnings proactively alert the team to red flags and risk in their pipeline, pressure testing the quality of their commit. Wednesday: Gong automatically reminds sales managers to submit their forecast, and gives them a simple submission panel to update their forecast. Thursday: Directors, managers, and Ops review the current month and 90-day forecast in Gong. Using Trends and Gong Projection, the team quickly checks if they’re on track. Changes help the team understand which deals moved each week and why. And Deal Boards allow the senior managers and Ops to verify the quality of every deal in the forecast, with AI highlighting risk, helping validate the integrity of the team forecast. Friday: The team supplements the bottom-up forecast with top-down pacing and WoW analysis, reviewed by senior management. “With Gong,” Korab said, “we see every step of the sales process.” This advanced visibility means the GTM team can make better business decisions about which opportunities to prioritize and whether or not to include certain deals in their forecast. Integrated data immediately tells the team if their approach is effective, so they’re never waiting on results. Korab says, “Working with Gong lets us run a predictable revenue organization, reduce the number of tools in our tech stack, and save tons of time on forecasting.” Sales forecasts take 50% less time, with 100% of reps reporting According to Gong’s Reality of Forecasting Report 2022, only 22% of sales professionals say their forecasting process is efficient. That’s a problem for companies that are scaling. It prevents them from making quick business decisions about resource allocations, strategic directions, etc. Before using Gong Forecast, Upwork’s forecasting process was archaic and time-consuming. It involved Google spreadsheets, Salesforce reports, and “a ton of rep sentiment,” and ate up a minimum of six hours per week across five meetings involving multiple people. Managers were constantly wasting hours chasing reps over data entry. Forecast halved that time. “It got us into a routine. Now we focus on achieving our forecast instead of agonizing over whether we included the right numbers.” Gong reminds reps to fill in their forecast, which may seem trivial, but it creates a clockwork routine that everyone understands. Korab says that, “Today, 100% of reps submit their forecast on time. It used to be that 75% was a good week. Now the platform does the chasing for us,” says Korab. That’s part of how Upwork increased their sales forecasting accuracy to 95%. The team can call numbers confidently and accurately because they’re based on integrated and accurate data. “We give every C-suite member access to Gong because we trust the numbers,” says Korab. Mike Schaffer, the VP of Revenue Operations at Upwork says, “Instead of attending endless meetings, I’ve delegated inspections to my team. It’s one less thing I have to worry about. I trust the numbers I get from them.” Gong provides priceless accuracy in any economy Gong Forecast has changed how the RevOps team feels about the numbers they put forward. “I jump into the Trends tab every day,” says Korab. “ It helps me make reliable business decisions in real time, on a daily basis. I assess my sales forecast accuracy against 90-day historical wins, which I’ve found to be reliable in this economic environment. In Gong, I see those numbers at a glance.” Not only are the company’s sales forecasts 95% accurate while they scale, the RevOps team has the real-time feedback it needs about GTM initiatives. They can take their initiatives forward with confidence, knowing they have the means to ensure each initiative’s success. As Schaffer put it, “I can’t tell you how these economically uncertain times will turn out, but I know that we’ll be in a better position to face them because of the partnership we’ve built with Gong.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Gong’s revenue intelligence fuels a 141% surge in Paycor’s client sales success Customer Stories Sales Leadership Videos Enterprise Deal Execution North America Software How Elsevier lands 45% larger deals using Gong across its NOAM sales team Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Global Business Services Hello, new reality: How WalkMe uses Gong to add visibility around their deals Small Business Deal Execution North America Software

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How Greenhouse reaped a 281% surge in new product ARR using Gong’s AI

Hannah Hapin — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 21:08:23 +0000

How Greenhouse reaped a 281% surge in new product ARR using Gong’s AI Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business North America Software 281% increase in new product ARR The challenge Greenhouse needed a way to track and reinforce training for their products and increase org-wide visibility into customer interactions and deals in progress. The outcome Gong harnesses Greenhouse’s customer interactions and provides the insights they need to accelerate rep productivity and revenue growth. That includes a 281% increase in new product ARR, a 456% boost in attachment rate, and more. Headquarters New York, New York founded 2012 company size 800+ industry Software Development Written by Jessica Clay, Sr Program Manager of Revenue Enablement @ Greenhouse One of my favorite things to do is spend time transforming my yard with gardening. Gardening is challenging, rewarding, and requires a lot of planning. You have to amend the soil, place plants in the right place, water and fertilize as required, pull weeds, and then you still have to patiently wait for everything to grow and blossom. A garden is always a work in progress, and making changes to optimize the results is half the fun. Sales enablement is a lot like gardening. I get to help Sales Reps blossom! I dig deep to find tools that will help individuals grow and reach their full potential, and I strive to make teams more productive, aligned, and strategic in their work. And I get to do it for a company called Greenhouse, which is cool, considering my hobby. Greenhouse is the hiring operating system for people-first companies. Our hiring software streamlines the recruitment process for employers and job seekers, from sourcing all the way through onboarding. We do much more than track applications. Our platform helps companies live their values by embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) within their hiring practices and providing guidance as well as software that helps folks mitigate unconscious bias. I started as a sales rep and worked as an account executive before switching to sales enablement when it was a relatively young field. Before joining Greenhouse, I spent 18 months at a learning technology company. It was there that I first encountered Gong, but it wasn’t until I leveraged the platform at Greenhouse that I saw how much we could accomplish with it. Gong harnesses our customer interactions and provides the insights we use to accelerate rep productivity and revenue growth. That includes a 281% increase in new product ARR, a 456% boost in attachment rate, and more. I’m pleased to share the story of how we achieved such outstanding results, as we expanded our use of Gong. Helping a remote sales team blossom with AI-backed insights Greenhouse is a fully remote, global business. Our growing, global account management (AM) team comprises some of the most inspiring, motivated, and target-driven individuals and leaders I’ve ever worked with. This team of professionals works alongside our customer success (CS) colleagues to strengthen client relations and grow the partnership with our users by upselling products and services. Even with the best sales team, there are always hurdles to overcome. One of my first projects as an Enablement Manager at Greenhouse was to help reinforce the training for a new product that had just been launched. Despite an appetite from our customers for this new solution, we simply weren’t seeing the upsell numbers we had projected. After a series of discovery discussions with the account management leadership team, we identified three key areas that needed attention: discovery, objection handling, and next steps. We all agreed on a need to improve our AMs’ performance in these areas, and wanted to find a way to address the challenges in line with Greenhouse’s work culture. Gong immediately came to mind. The platform captures customer interactions, then leverages its proprietary AI model (built exclusively for sales teams) to analyze them. It identifies key trends inside those customer interactions and reveals what works and what doesn’t as our reps conduct discovery, handle objections, and set next steps. We were already using Gong when I joined the company, but in a limited capacity. Upskilling our AMs allowed us to break new ground with the platform, as we sought ways to align around engaging content that worked. A program launch enhanced by an in-person event The NFL season was just around the corner, so we decided to use a football theme when we launched our bi-weekly “Game Film” series. We created it to build alignment around messaging and improve rep productivity across the board. Inspired by the way sports teams analyze game footage to improve player performance and execute new plays, our program uses actual customer interactions captured and analyzed by Gong to help our teams learn from customer conversations. We worked with our Gong CSMs to build a learning plan that taught our AMs and their leaders how to effectively use the following Gong features: streams, call search and filters, points of interest, hashtags, the Call Library, and the Gong app for Zoom meetings. We then developed a Game Film playbook and launched it with an instructional “Training Camp” activity that preceded sessions dedicated to discovery, objection handling, and sales next steps. To complement the training sessions and rollout of the Game Film series, we created a Slack channel specifically for Game Film questions and wins. The only way to make this series successful was to boost our Gong adoption. We have a culture of feedback without judgment, and we wanted to build on that by developing our confidence and trust in each other — and in a platform that was new to many people. Fortunately, we had already scheduled an in-person event in Denver shortly after the Game Film rollout. It was my first time meeting the team in person and an opportunity to address employee concerns. Using feedback from the remote Training Camp session, we created an in-person game using 24 sticky notes on a whiteboard. Every AM chose a note at random and addressed a question about Gong and our new product. We incorporated role-playing, knowledge checks, and questions around discovery, the theme of our first Game Film. This informal and fun in-person exercise helped our AMs connect and become more comfortable with each other. At the end of the event, we walked away with a new slogan: Growth only happens when you get uncomfortable. Our results included a 281% boost in new product ARR We really pushed the football metaphor. We labeled our ongoing Game Film series, “Fantasy Gong Ball,” and after every training session, we selected an MVP for giving the most valuable feedback. It was a great way of recognizing people’s contributions to these team exercises. Our account managers love this format and have embraced Gong, with 84% rating their comfort level at four or five on a scale of five after the first session. After the second session, 100% of them expressed the same comfort with Gong. We launched our Game Film series at the beginning of Q4 and were able to compare our numbers to the previous quarter. In terms of Gong adoption, we saw a 147% increase in the number of reviewed customer interactions, a 360% rise in the average number of interactions with feedback, and a 30% uplift in interactions with comments. Our sales expansion figures also rose significantly in Q4. While many factors came into play, our Game Film series contributed significantly, resulting in a 281% increase in new product ARR, 312% more new product attached to renewals, and a 456% boost in attachment rate. Our AMs gained the confidence to effectively sell and upsell our new product. We couldn’t have done it without Gong. Training rooted in self-sufficiency Using Gong gives us visibility into everyone’s customer interactions, and we use its insights to help our reps tweak their talk tracks and reposition parts of their sales pitches. By adding personalized coaching opportunities to our bi-weekly Game Film series, we created even more possibilities for individual development and collective improvement. Some of Gong’s simplest features have had the most impact. One of my favorites is Call Snippets, a feature that lets us highlight key moments in a conversation. When our CSMS speak with a customer and hear something that suggests an upsell opportunity, they can highlight the interaction in Gong and comment to their Account Management partner(s). After launching our Game Films project, we transitioned ownership to a committee comprising members of the account management team. Now, the Game Film meetings are completely self-managed. The new team even devised a way to run the sessions, inspired by NCAA March Madness brackets and the friendly competition of sports betting pools. That’s the power of Gong. Once people learn the basics, they discover new ways to leverage the platform to sell and execute better. Gong is bearing fruit for Greenhouse We recently rolled out Gong Deal Boards to our CSMs and AMs. This powerful feature integrates seamlessly with our Gainsight customer success platform and Salesforce. We can pull any metric from Gainsight and Salesforce, feed it into Gong, and our CSMs can see the health of client accounts, send leads to AMs, and point out upsell opportunities. Having deep visibility into customer interactions and deals in progress allows us to make better and more strategic decisions. We have a saying at Greenhouse: “What got you here won’t get you there.” Gong certainly proved that point. We’re headed somewhere new, and Gong is the platform to take us there! Once we embraced and maximized our use of Gong, we began to see results. Gong has now clearly taken root. Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one ServiceTitan Gains Higher Close Rates with Gong for Deals Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Business Services Round the World in Many Ways: How Mimecast Secured a Successful Global Messaging Rollout with Data Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Global Business Services How Greenhouse reaped a 281% surge in new product ARR using Gong’s AI Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software

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How Andela’s enablement team shortened sales cycle times by 33% with Gong

Hannah Hapin — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 22:40:10 +0000

How Andela’s enablement team shortened sales cycle times by 33% with Gong Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business North America Media & Internet The challenge Andela already had Gong, but there was an opportunity to further maximize its use. When Andela renewed Gong, the enablement team began to own the platform, which gave them even greater visibility into what they needed and how the team could achieve it. The outcome Through Gong, Andela was able to gain visibility into customer interactions which led to increased efficiency and improved decision-making. They also saw an improvement in rep knowledge, reduced time to ROI, and cut sales cycles by 33%! headquarters New York, New York founded 2014 company size 1,500+ industry IT Services and IT Consulting Written by Kieran Smith, Past Senior Manager of Revenue Enablement @ Andela I spent more than a decade as a sales leader. But the further up the ladder I went, the less fun I had, and the further I moved away from what I loved doing: coaching and developing people. I used to work as a professional football coach (soccer for the North Americans out there), and there are many parallels to coaching people on and off the field. I liked to develop people into their best selves, improve their skills, and even help them with career path mapping. When I transitioned off the pitch into sales, the most rewarding part was constantly revising and reworking sales processes and methodologies to get the best results from my sales reps. While I liked the strategy element of leadership roles, it took me away from people on the frontlines who needed coaching. Coming out of the depths of the pandemic, I made a conscious pivot from sales leadership into sales enablement, and joined the team at Andela.Andela is a global talent marketplace that connects leading organisations with highly skilled technologists in emerging markets. As a Senior Manager of Revenue Enablement, my focus was onboarding and coaching AEs — exactly the stuff I like to do. But first, I had to address several challenges around remotely onboarding a sales team with an ever-evolving sales process. Better visibility was the #1 key to empowering our sales enablement team Ramp times and our time to ROI had room for improvement. Between a newer sales team and shifting sales messaging, our reps struggled to hit the ground running and adapt to changes in the sales process. All of this led to slower sales cycles and knowledge gaps. To get our reps up to speed faster, I needed better visibility into their customer interactions. I needed to tap into Gong. I had bought and implemented Gong at another company, but left before reaping its benefits. Fortunately, Andela already had Gong, but there was an opportunity to further maximise its use. When Andela renewed Gong, I took ownership of the platform. The following month I was promoted to run the enablement team, which gave me even greater visibility into what we needed and how we could achieve it. Gong is much more than a conversation intelligence tool; it’s a Revenue Intelligence Platform. The platform’s value and efficiency come from how it helps leaders analyse customer interactions at scale. For someone in an enablement position who helps drive strategic initiatives, such as new messaging rollouts and price changes, with adoption and coaching, the data and the insights from those interactions are critical. Andela’s sales team had more than doubled during the pandemic, so our onboarding and communications needed to change if we were going to remain efficient. We could no longer rely on sharing anecdotal experiences to inform our strategy. Gong’s true differentiator is empowering teams to harness the voice of the customer by uncovering data and insights that shape how a company moves forward, and that’s what we needed most. Gong revealed and corrected gaps in rep training (with a 188% improvement rate!) In 2022, I listened to 2,238 customer interactions in Gong. The number isn’t as significant as the information that came from that data. I pride myself on understanding the full context of customer interactions: what’s being said and by whom, at what level, and for which segment. Gong gives me what I need to reach that level of understanding so I can plan the next best step. Andela previously had a “ride-along” culture, where managers would sit in on random calls with their sales reps and base their understanding of that rep’s performance on their call behaviour. But of course, people behave differently when their manager is there. The truth happens during interactions when the manager isn’t there. Gong enabled me to learn what happened when managers weren’t in the room. And it revealed a lot about the gaps in our training… One trend I noticed in listening to these calls was that reps passed a number of difficult questions to their manager. That meant reps were rising through the ranks with knowledge gaps.That said, we did some things well — our enterprise team was growing by ~4% week over week — but we also missed some of the basics, like setting agendas. When I asked the manager whether reps were setting agendas, they answered, “Yep.” But Gong revealed that agenda setting happened on only 17% of calls. Managers were shocked, but there was nothing to debate. We did a sprint for two weeks, where we ran through how to set an agenda and set expectations. After the training, agenda setting jumped from 17% to 49%, which is great for such a short time. It’s a 188% increase! Data-backed insights make it easier to separate assumptions from the truth. Sales enablement is a catchall term, but I view myself as an internal strategic advisor. In other words, I have influence without authority. Objective numbers make it easier to assert that influence because it’s hard to argue with what’s there in black and white.Gong provides the data-backed insights that separate assumptions from the truth. It improved our efficiency and our decision-making at the same time. Call Libraries improved rep knowledge, reduced their time to ROI, and cut sales cycles by 33% Once I had a solid understanding of our situation, we revamped our onboarding program to integrate Gong as early as possible. With each new group of hires, we introduced Gong earlier and earlier. One of the first touchpoints is a best-practice Call Library split by segment, role, call type, and element of the call. This makes it easier for new reps to find the exact information they need. Our SDR library, for example, is split into folders for booked meeting calls and prospecting calls. The prospecting folder has six subfolders for each piece of the conversation in the SDR playbook, with call snippets for each element. That might include call openers, insights, permission, insightful questions, objection handling, and closings. Not everybody needs to work on every part of the cold call. Someone might be really good at asking questions, but not so good at objection handling. Gong makes it really easy for our reps to listen to 15 examples of objection handling or 20 examples of how to close a meeting. Whatever they need, whenever they need it.We also implemented a certification for all roles. As part of the preparation for that process, reps need to do a Gong exercise in which they listen to previous certifications and offer feedback. With more exposure to best practices through the Call Libraries, the standards of certification went up, from a score of 3/5 to 4/5 (a 33% increase). And when those reps finished training, they ramped up a lot faster. We cut our ramp time for SDRs by 50%, which is notably good. We also reduced the time to ROI for AEs to 12 weeks, and shortened our sales cycle by 33%. Gong-focused incentive program upleveled managers’ and reps’ coaching skills My dedication to coaching was important, but also led me to a big mistake. I knew the value in developing people, and assumed other leaders did too. I also assumed they knew how to do it well, but I was wrong. Not many people actually get management training. Our sales leadership team was growing quickly to keep pace with the growth of our reps, so it made sense to boost Gong adoption with more tenured team members through the managers. We created a leadership development program focused on sales coaching, and set minimum expectations for managers to review one customer interaction for each rep in Gong and provide a Scorecard and feedback. After that, we encouraged reps to use Gong to listen to their own interactions with customers, as well as those of our top reps. At the sales team’s Monday standup meeting, we introduced a Gong leaderboard that showed the previous week’s stats for SDRs, AEs, and client partners. We started noticing that the people who listened to the most calls were high on the leaderboard, so we augmented the leaderboard with our “Gong Star of the Month” program. Managers would nominate a call each month, and I would choose a winner for each role, with the winners receiving $250 plus some Gong swag. It was a chance for us to celebrate excellent performance and demonstrate our commitment to this platform. Nothing sends salespeople into a flurry more than hearing, “We’re going to do some call coaching,” because it usually means criticism. And I know what it’s like — your manager is critical about one bad decision and you never hear about anything else. Instead, we reverse-engineered a feedback loop by creating a self-reflective Scorecard. We asked reps to tell us two or three things they thought they did well, name where they felt they could improve, and provide suggestions for strategies they might try the next time. Reps submitted their Scorecard and the specific customer interaction for their manager to review in Gong. Then a conversation began between the rep and their manager. We taught our managers how to coach more effectively using Gong as a coaching solution, which led to improvements for the team.I worked with one woman who started her journey near the bottom of the leaderboard. Using this self-reflective feedback, she was soon second from the top. She just needed that interactive feedback process, and Gong helped us deliver it. Clear data made it easy to track the success of training programs for new business lines The world changed while I was at Andela. As everyone went remote, Andela was in high demand, and we had to change our sales approach. We needed to talk about our story, boost engagement, and discover which points now resonated with prospects. We changed our slide deck four times, but we always looked to Gong data to refine our strategy.Andela’s core business involved front-end and back-end engineers. During the pandemic, we strategically started moving into what we called practice areas, for people with more specialised skills. As we introduced these practice areas, we used Gong Trackers to highlight key words. For example, every mention of “data” or “cloud practice” would alert the practice leader to listen to that particular interaction. Trackers were a huge part of Andela’s growth strategy. Using Gong meant we could hone in on growth areas, identify practice gaps, and easily alert practice leads so they could jump in straight away. We also added practice area calls to our Call Library, so sales reps could listen to Salesforce calls before talking to a CRM director, for example. Gong data offers specificity, allowing leaders to be more confident and conscious about how they help individuals and the team as a whole. Over 18 months, I noticed an improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of changes we made to our sales approach. Gong allowed us to create more bespoke, targeted training. Rather than ask a manager what the team needed to work on, we could look at objective stats in Gong to see what needed work. We could develop group training if the entire team scored low on a pain point, or create more targeted training in a particular area if it was warranted. After training, we monitored those areas to determine whether there were improvements. Gong data gives us that specificity, allowing us to be more confident and conscious about how we help individuals and the team. The best coaches (and engineers) use a data-driven approach Whether you’re a world-class football coach or sales leader, you should use data to analyse your performance against your chosen methodology. That analysis informs how you train for the rest of the week, month, and year. Whether you’re working with an athlete who can’t break out of 1:1 coverage or a salesperson who always avoids a pointed question, you have to go beyond “my opinion versus your opinion” and look at the data to see what really happened. Only then can you influence strategy and direction for your team. Embracing insights from customer interactions will enhance every aspect of your sales cycle. Sales is one of the most objective industries there is, because your revenue number is your revenue number. That makes sales ripe for a data-driven approach. The best thing you can do is embrace the data-driven insights Gong generates from your customer interactions. They can enhance every aspect of your sales cycle. Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Egnyte Streamlines Customer Success Management Small Business Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software How SoftServe Used Gong to Adapt and Align Their Teams Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution North America Software BairesDev is 7x more productive at strategic decision-making with Gong. Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Global Software

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How Funnel Increased Messaging Adoption by 76% Across Global Teams with Gong

Hannah Hapin — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 18:42:40 +0000

How Funnel Increased Messaging Adoption by 76% Across Global Teams with Gong Strategic Initiatives Small Business Asia-Pacific Europe/Middle East/Africa Business Services 76% increase in new messaging adoption The SUMMARY Funnel, the world’s leading Marketing Data Hub, wanted to revamp how it ran its strategic initiatives — specifically sales process adoption and messaging initiatives — across its sales organization. They used Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform to prioritize better decision-making and pivots during rollouts and improve their alignment and new message adoption across globally distributed teams. HEADQUARTERS Stockholm, Stockholm County FOUNDED 2014 EMPLoyees 300+ industry Advertising Services A 76% boost is a reason to cheer, especially if you’re Funnel’s Sales Enablement team. That’s the astounding jump they experienced in sales calls that mention Funnel’s new messaging, thanks to Gong. It’s the result of a strategic initiative designed to align their globally distributed teams around new messaging. Funnel is a Marketing Data Hub that connects multiple platforms and allows marketing teams to assess their performance. It’s truly a global organization, with headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden; offices in Boston and Dublin; and Australia. When Katie McCullagh, Global Sales Enablement Manager (Dublin), and Angela Baldacci, Global Sales Enablement Manager in the US were asked to run a strategic initiative promoting Funnel’s new messaging to globally distributed — and quickly growing — teams, they leaned into Gong. Funnel was at a critical juncture in its growth and faced some challenges in adopting and standardizing new messaging, all of which are typical of fast-growing and globally distributed teams during rollouts. These included working across multiple locations and time zones and in numerous languages and dialects. Based on past challenges, Katie and Angela’s top priorities were: Gamifying the uptake of strategic initiative rollouts: This would result from tracking the new messaging’s adoption, then pivoting based on adoption-related insights. Greater business efficiency: They would achieve this through global alignment around new messaging that worked. Gong’s Initiatives board and Smart Trackers made tracking adoption easy Gong’s Initiatives board and Smart Trackers made tracking adoption easy Gong had already streamlined and improved Funnel’s coaching, onboarding, and skills development for the sales team. Now, Katie and Angela were keen to test out the benefits of its Initiatives board for rollouts. This feature was built to track the adoption of strategic initiatives like this new messaging rollout, so decision-makers could steer the initiative in real time based on its adoption and results in the field. Gong’s Initiatives board made it easy for Katie and Angela to iterate and pivot quickly during the rollout based on their ability to filter adoption rates for any team, individual, or time zone. Gong’s Initiatives board kept them focused on adoption metrics and helped them bypass the issues that typically result in misalignment on global teams (location, language, etc.). Angela describes the Initiatives board as, “So powerful. Incredible from a data visualization perspective — a single click shows us how our initiative is performing. No exporting. No manual calculation.” They also set up Smart Trackers — Gong’s AI-powered way to pick up on themes or topics within calls, not just keywords — to track conversations that indicated adoption, no matter the language or dialect. “Going through the process of creating a Smart Tracker is really fun for the person creating it, and it’s amazing to see how Gong’s AI constantly learns to detect unforeseen challenges we’d otherwise miss,” says Angela. They had all the adoption information they needed to pivot quickly, in real-time, and in one place. “Gong gamification” helped achieve a 76% boost in new messaging use Katie and Angela added some healthy competition to their strategic initiative. They hoped a little gamification would inspire widespread message adoption and align global team members around consistent use of the new messaging. “Gong helped us drive a strategic initiative and align global teams around new messaging in a way that was engaging and insightful,” said Angela. With a 76% increase in the number of calls using the new messaging in just one month, their plan paid off. Here is how they gamified their strategic initiative using Gong’s Smart Trackers and Scorecards: Goal: They aimed to incentivize new message adoption and align globally distributed teams around a strategic initiative. Process: They created a scoring system using Gong’s Smart Trackers, whereby salespeople earned points by using the company’s new messaging on calls, and managers earned points by assessing those calls using Gong’s Scorecards to rate customized criteria and highlight where calls needed improvement. Results: Within one month, 76% more of the 1,000+ customer interactions across the revenue org mentioned the new messaging. Bonus: New messaging was top of mind for every revenue team member in the org. This approach helped solidify the use of Gong by both managers and reps during new strategic initiatives. The winning team’s manager scored more than 80 calls! Funnel forever reshapes its strategic initiatives “With Gong, there’s infinite flexibility and possibility when we roll out critical business initiatives.” Angela finds that every time the Global Sales Enablement team hits a potential roadblock, there’s always a way to use Gong to solve the issue. She found it wasn’t as easy to remain flexible with other software. “Gong has been an incredible platform … Even the different language versioning has really helped in our tracking.” In short, says Angela, “I love Gong and will advocate for the platform every day.” Kaite agrees. “Even if we weren’t global, Gong has been so pivotal to the success of a sales org to see what team members do, how they excel, and how they learn from each other.” Today, the Global Sales Enablement team relies on Gong during the planning and execution of its strategic initiatives, wherever they take place around the world. Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one How BlueGrace’s reps got an 88% lift in reply rates using Gong Engage Coaching Deal Execution North America Business Services How Andela’s enablement team shortened sales cycle times by 33% with Gong Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Media & Internet There and Back Again: Why Influitive Returned to Gong Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software

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Gong gives Reachdesk the gift of alignment during rapid international growth

Hannah Hapin — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 15:05:22 +0000

Gong gives Reachdesk the gift of alignment during rapid international growth Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business North America Software The challenge Without Gong, Reachdesk’s EMEA sales teams couldn’t unearth details about which rep behaviors won deals or why customers made purchases. That led to inefficient sales practices and difficulty aligning CS, account managers, product, and marketing around the customer lifecycle. The outcome Reachdesk now uses Gong to gain valuable insights into rep and customer behaviors so they can keep global teams aligned and focus on efficient sales processes and customer lifecycles. This approach kept the sales team connected throughout a period of rapid growth. Headquarters New York, New York Founded 2018 Employees 500+ Industry Software Development If anyone knows the power of a good gift, it’s Reachdesk. Reachdesk is a global direct mail platform that helps B2B companies build deeper connections with customers through gifting. Reachdesk was listed as one of the fastest-growing software companies by G2 in 2021 and has been an established G2 category leader since. After a record year of growth and a $43M Series B in 2021, Reachdesk grew their global sales team across US and EMEA. It’s an impressive feat, but one primed with risk. Periods of major growth can bring misalignment and poor communication to globally dispersed teams, which often results in inefficient operations across the customer lifecycle. Reachdesk wanted to improve these issues prior to expansion, and was eager to solve them quickly before they became ingrained in the next growth phase. The company decided to use Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform to surface customer insights that could bolster alignment, communication, efficiency, and decision-making. Gain efficiency by aligning teams in EMEA and the US Previously, Reachdesk’s global teams lacked alignment and dealt with poor communication about customer-related issues. Today, Gong makes it easy for the EMEA sales team to stay aligned with their global counterparts and share lessons learned across CS, marketing, and product teams around the world, at any point in time. They often do so on the go, using Gong’s mobile app. The sales team relies heavily on Gong’s Call Libraries to bring the most effective tactics and talk tracks to everyone’s attention. Wherever they are, EMEA sales team members can contribute full calls or call snippets to best-practice Call Libraries, sharing their lessons learned for training purposes. Teams anywhere in the world can easily listen to each other’s calls, learn what works, and provide each other with feedback. “Being able to share snippets globally has been a huge benefit of using Gong,” says Alex Olley, Reachdesk’s co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer, “It has helped with my biggest pain point during this growth by getting alignment between the US and the UK teams.” This alignment has resulted in heightened training efficiency, as well as increased collaboration and consistency in messaging across the distributed teams. Spot risks and keep deals on track At one time, Reachdesk found it hard to tap into its customer interactions to determine which deals carried hidden risks. With the adoption of Gong, reps on all its global teams turned to Gong’s Deal Boards to spot warning signs and risks inside deals. Deal Boards give them the full context of a deal’s progression, so they can collaborate with AEs to address those risks and get deals back on track. Deal Boards surface risks that managers and reps would otherwise miss. Olley also wanted to know what top-performing reps did that worked. “I really wanted to solve that problem,” he said, “getting intelligence from all the reps, and particularly the top performers, so I could make sure we pushed the right talk tracks through to the rest of the team.” He wanted to know what their message adherence was like and which winning behaviors the top reps used. With Gong’s ability to analyze customer interactions and highlight what works and what doesn’t, Olley was able to get Reachdesk’s reps singing the same winning tune, wherever they worked. Today, they use Gong’s advanced visibility and smart guidance for ongoing coaching and training initiatives and keeping deal execution moving smoothly. Olley says these same deal insights are “also useful for forecasting.” Gong surfaces reliable information quickly, saving them at least two hours each week on forecasting and pipeline activities. Make data-backed decisions that get customers to say yes While his EMEA sales team grew, Olley also wanted to clarify why customers made purchases so he could base future decisions on that information. Olley says, “There are three things we now look at using Gong’s keyword trackers: customers’ use cases, the challenges they face, and what success looks like for them.” Whenever a deal closes, he gets an alert and listens to the call to further clarify why the customer said yes. This — along with Gong Insights’ analytical abilities — helps Olley and his teams make informed business decisions. Most recently, he used Gong’s initial analysis of customer interactions to update Reachdesk’s messaging and align it with their customers’ stated needs. The revenue teams also use Gong Insights to act on opportunities in the market and map their product roadmap. Gift your entire company a solution it loves Today, Reachdesk uses Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform across the entire revenue organization. Olley says, “It’s embedded into a lot of what we do as a company.” Gong supported Reachdesk through a period of rapid growth, while it cemented its sales messaging, designed efficient processes, and aligned its global teams. Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Shortening the time to success for new sales reps Small Business Coaching North America Media & Internet How Gong Became Diligent’s MVP by Increasing Close Rates by 7.4% Enterprise Coaching Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Software How Gong got every Pigment Department on the same team Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa Software

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